


around below above

by parkadescandal



Series: as long as you champion [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Time, Lord of Castle Oblivious, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 14:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15708993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkadescandal/pseuds/parkadescandal
Summary: So, like, what does it mean when your best friend keeps making all these dramatic gestures and you can't stop feeling like you're gonna cry about it?





	around below above

**Author's Note:**

> follow up to [and you will find me, friend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15253713). one scene is lifted straight from it, but flipsies this time.

Once they return to the Gummi ship Sora makes some speedy excuse to jet back to his cabin before the lingering sniffles transform into full on hysteric tears. Again. How unbecoming for a hero of light, or whatever.

He’s barely shuffled down the hallway before the bawling begins. He hopes that Donald and Goofy continue to avoid this conversation as they had the last three times this exact same thing had happened after the adrenaline had run its course. He can’t help it. He’s tired and shaky and goodness knows what’s in store next time they touch land and he misses his _mom_ , and sleeping in in his own _bed,_ and on the beach, and in trees without worrying about getting attacked, and he misses his _friends_ , and now he’s got hope that his best friend is almost one hundred percent totally okay and possibly most likely still a big jerk but he can deal with that because he’s _alive_.

He’s full-on wailing again, at least now safely within the confines of his quarters on the Gummi. He imagines Donald and Goofy sharing that look of concern they think they’ve been hiding, playing a game of rock/paper/scissors to decide which one of them is going to have to come give him a good ol’ pep talk.

Well, it’s a good thing this boat didn’t actually run on happy faces. They’d stopped trying that one on him, at least.

As if summoned, Sora hears the tell-tale knock of one of Donald’s staves tapping on his door.

“ _Nope not now changing_!” he yells. Into what he doesn’t know. A lion? Goofy might’ve fallen for that one, but he feels Donald’s disapproval just about as much as he can hear it, and it doesn’t take a keyblade to unlock a Gummi door.

Donald takes a moment to soak it all in. Sora wipes a hand across his face, getting snot all over his glove. Donald sighs.

“I’m fiiiine,” Sora whines.

“Suuure,” Donald mimics. Goofy might have been better for this. No helping it now.

“I miss him,” Sora huffs.

“Well, at least you know you’ve already helped him once. If anybody could do it again…”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He makes to wipe his nose again but remembers the glove. He is very, _very_ tired.

Donald stares him down, arms crossed.

“Okay,” Sora says. This seems to satisfy him, and he waddles off. Sora crawls dejectedly into his bunk to pout until next landfall. What could he even do? He wasn’t quite so sure Riku even needed his help at all.

*

“Not bad,” Riku says in response to Sora countering a hit before sliding up behind to cover his back. Naturally, that same instant, Sora flubs a parry in a way he hasn’t done so spectacularly since the king’s own captain of the guard had good naturedly _hyucked_ him through some lessons on guarding and defense.

“Hey!” Sora says, effortlessly swapping places with Riku, who’s just dispatched with the dusk that’s toppled his balance.

“Sorry!” Riku replies, not sorry at all, _the jerk_ , then he goes briefly still before blocking Sora from flanking the leader of this most recent wave of Xemnas’s lackeys and throwing up an impressive barrier spell.

“Whoa,” Sora blurts out in spite of himself. “You’re kinda awesome at this.”

“Well, not all of us got a chance to sneak in a nice long nap,” Riku says. “Which, by the way, I’ve been meaning to te--”

A sudden rumble interrupts him, and the castle floor does its best to tip them topsy turvy into the other side of nowhere. Sora finds himself well insulated from the fallout--Riku’s practically tackled him. He’s _insanely_ tall. Sora can’t stop sneaking glances to see if he can gauge just how much he’s got to catch up to.

“See, this is exactly my point!” Riku grins down at him. “You wouldn’t get anywhere without someone watching your back all the time.”

“My hero.” Sora rolls his eyes, taking his hand for a lift up as they scramble up to head back into the fray. If he gets another snarky retort, he can’t hear it for all the pounding in his ears.

*

Players stay in motion even after they’ve crashed landed back home to the island. Duty calls. Riku comes to collect Sora from his mother’s house, where Sora is giving it one last college try to explain everything. He’s casting a spell in demonstration and entirely bungles it when he hears a mumbled “ _show off_ ” from behind him. Well. Magic isn’t his strong suit, anyway.

Nerves clearly frayed, Sora’s mother asks Riku point blank why he never came home when the islands mysteriously reappeared. Riku averts his gaze so sharply the floor practically starts to smolder.

“I couldn’t just... I couldn’t come home without him.”

“Well,” she finally says. “At least you’re both in good hands. Don’t forget to write, both of you,” she sighs, shooing them away before they get trapped in a never ending circle of politeness.

“What was that about?” Sora asks, giving Riku a gentle shove on the arm that doesn’t even throw him off balance as he readies a transportation spell he’s been practicing with the king.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says dryly. “Now, I’m reasonably confident this won’t send us to some backwater who knows where.”

“As if,” Sora starts to say before becoming vaguely queasy at the sudden memory of Xigbar. He shakes his head. “I trust you. Just hurry up and get on with it.”

“We’ll see,” Riku says, raising his eyebrows at Sora’s sudden impatience.

Sora’s not surprised at all to see they’ve ended up precisely where they need to be.

*

Riku’s mumbling some nonsense apology. Oh man. Sora feels the tears welling up. He moves in for the hug.

“I just wanted to see you. I missed you.” Great. That’ll shut him up, but it’s not doing anything for the sniffles.

At some point he registers that Riku’s hugged him back, said “I missed you too.” Then he out of nowhere brings up the times when Sora used to get tongue-tied and clammy-palmed every time Kairi was in his line of sight, which is definitely an unfair comparison to whatever this emotional outburst is supposed to be.

But it’s weird because he doesn’t think he’s ever been quite this content, really, even though from tip to toe he feels weirdly buzzy, lightheaded and jumpy like he gets after overdoing it a little on casting magic. His head hurts a little. All he wants to do is smile.

*

“You idiot!” Sora yells as Riku strides over to join him where he’s hiding, leaning against the Gummi ship docked not too far outside Yen Sid’s tower. He’s sulking, arms crossed and wide awake in spite of it being the middle of the night, not that you could tell here. “I still can’t believe you did that! What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t, I guess,” Riku says with a sigh, holding out one gloved hand and staring at that rather than face anything else. One time he’d told Sora he couldn’t take him seriously when he looked angry, which was probably why he wouldn’t look at him now. _Jerk!_ But Sora guesses that’s fair after all, because he’s moved on to pouting. It’s been days since he’d failed the Mark of Mastery and he’s still waking up from clutching nightmares feeling strangely calm and rational, a familiar voice pinging around in his head as he comes to. “I wouldn’t say becoming your dream eater was a conscious choice, exactly.”

“You shouldn’t have had to do that.”

“I don’t know that I can really _stop_ doing it.”

“Well, I can handle this on my own!”

“And what if I don’t want to let you?”

Sora looks up then. Riku’s mirrored his position, arms crossed, cheek nearly plastered against the ship’s wall as he meets his eyes. He doesn’t look angry, or upset, or even like he’s trying to make fun of Sora. He honestly hasn’t really done that in a while, when he thinks about it, not seriously.

“You’re a master now. You shouldn’t have to watch my back,” Sora says, throwing his arms up in a half-hearted show of exasperation before letting them fall to his side, defeated. “You shouldn’t have had to fix any of my mistakes in the first place.” Sora looks away, turns the other direction, but feels Riku reach out to take his hand.

“I wanted to.” Riku reaches over to take his other hand. “And I’d do it again, if you needed me to.”

Sora blinks a couple times. Riku’s still looking at him directly, almost... embarrassed? That can’t be right. Riku continues.

“I’d... do anything for you, if you needed it. ...If you asked for it,” Riku says softly, and slowly lets go of his hands.

What Sora _thinks_ as the twilight sky suddenly goes blurry and the weird prickly feeling that starts in his chest and burns out through his fingertips gets stronger is

_Riku, if this is another apology then I don’t know what it’s gonna take for you to finally get the picture that there’s nothing that you could ever do that I won’t forgive you for_

but what he _says_ turns out just to be Riku’s name, left hanging there while Riku himself stands absolutely still looking for all the worlds like he’s just told a terrible secret. Sora suddenly realizes that it’s not Riku who’s been slow on the uptake.

 _Oh,_ thinks Sora. _Here goes nothing_ , thinks Sora. And he takes a step forward and he grabs Riku’s face and he pulls it towards his own so he can kiss it. And that he does, for about three whole seconds before he stops abruptly and grabs Riku by the shoulders to take in the look of shock on his face.

“Oh,” breathes Sora, “did I read that wrong? I just--” but he is rudely interrupted when Riku pulls him in by the waist with one arm and returns that taken risk with gusto.

 _Oh_ , thinks Sora, reaching up to wrap his arms around his neck to lean in for more kisses. Riku slides his hands down to heft him up by the thighs so he’s clinging to him in a way that gives him a greater tactical advantage in closing their height gap for the next few moments before gently placing him back down on the ground and reaching to hold his face in one hand.

“I’m in love with you,” Riku breathes, holding his gaze steady. “Sometimes I think I always have been.”

Oh. Gee. It’s like the last Gummi piece has been snapped neatly into place. It’s the reason Riku’s been churning out miracle after miracle in his favor. And it’s the same reason Sora’s had this powerful feeling of missing Riku even when he was standing right next to him.

Sora starts to cry.

“I think I’ve loved you too,” he says shakily, gripping on to Riku’s jacket for dear life and soaking his shirt right through. “All I’ve wanted is to find you.”

“That’s so funny,” Riku says, gathering him into a protective embrace. “The only thing I could think about was being found by you. Thanks, Sora. Mission accomplished.”

Sora laughs, relieved, and stays contentedly wrapped up in Riku’s grip until he’s overcome with the urge to reach up and kiss him again.

*

“Wait,” Sora says, throwing his hand up to interrupt whatever thought they had been giggling hysterically about, tucked into the tiny alcove under the stairs in the entryway to the tower. “Did you say _anything_?”

“I said nothing of the sort,” Riku lies, standing and placing fisted hands on his hips in a show of false resistance. “And I hate you for implying it.”  

“No you don’t,” Sora says, taking the hand Riku’s extended to him and hopping up to meet him.

“No, I don’t,” he says, pulling him towards the staircase. They haven’t even left the first level but Sora feels dizzy, laughing as they take equal turns tugging one another up the twisting hallway into whatever trial was next in store.

**Author's Note:**

> takes a village, y'all. thanks so much to the sibling [creytia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Creytia) for letting me scream @ her through this one and the last, and to some of my server friends for being so supportive and willing to look over this for me, esp [CheckersXIV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheckersXIV/pseuds/CheckersXIV). i enlisted even more backup after realizing i made an egregious error in the last one about which kid's dad picks them up after playtime.
> 
> please yell with me about kingdom hearts [on twitter](https://twitter.com/deathdrpdistant).


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